Sweden, in the fall of 1632, when King Gustav II Adolf falls on the side of the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, his daughter Kristina becomes the nominal regent of Sweden - at the age of just six. As a result, Kristina is brought up like a boy - and given much more education than was usual for women in the 17th century. “The Girl King” grows up to become a free-spirited, culturally interested young woman - a passionate hunter who succeeds in ending the war, but whose love for her chambermaid Ebba brings her own court to the barricades. Especially as Kristina ignores all the rules of Protestantism and invites Catholic philosophers to court to learn from them... Mika Kaurismäki's ("Master Cheng in Pohjanjoki") visually stunning historical drama focuses on the sexual search for identity of its dazzling title character. The emancipation of a regent asserting herself in the midst of royal court intrigues, which was unusual for the time, suggests a comparison with Queen Elizabeth I of England. However, in comparison to Cate Blanchet's portrayal of a monarch who freezes cold by necessity, Kristina in Mika Kaurismäki's (brother of Aki Kaurismäki) film is a female figure bubbling over with life and the will to reform, who retained her exceptional status even after her death: Kristina of Sweden is one of three women buried in the Vatican Grottoes in St. Peter's Basilica.